Chapter 1: Characters
This is really late, but better than never I guess. So now I'm going to talk you guys about likely the first thing a person makes on a fanon/fanfiction: characters. Characters are basically the beings that your story follows, and generally help create the plot. Generally I would suggest when you make a character you get feedback from people. And when I say people, I don't just mean friends on the wiki or friends from real life you had read, I mean people you know (they can be friends) that are experienced in creating characters for the specific fanon/fanfiction. This is why I don't suggest a person from real life because unless they are on fanon/fanfiction a lot they likely won't be able to fully comment on it unless they've also read Bleach and understand a lot of concepts (if you do have a friend like that then by all means, but do make sure they know what they're doing). A good rule of thumb is to always ask at least one of the site's current admins what they think. Admins generally earn their position through time and experience so they should know what's up. You are not too good to get reviews from people and as long as the advice is sound and makes sense I would definitely suggest implementing it unless it goes against something important (DO NOT USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE THOUGH, ALWAYS TRY AND FIND COMPROMISE). And now we come to a little extra section I really wish I didn't have to add... Grammar I am not that much of a Grammar Nazi, but seriously, you need to use correct Grammar unless it's dialogue. It is not hard to copy/paste your article into Word and then use spell/Grammar check. Poor Grammar affects the quality of the work, especially on character pages and other such data articles. Not to say it isn't bad in a roleplay or solo story, that can be bad too. But yes, when a person looks at your article and sees bad Grammar, generally they'll think that you just don't care enough about it to make it the best it can be. I did not make this but I'm posting it here to explain more and for comic relief. Are you amused yet? Idea Generation So now we are here, ready to start making a character, but you don't have any solid ideas yet. What should you do? The answer varies but personally I suggest you relax yourself, listen to some music, maybe browse some content to get ideas, and then just consider thoughts to find ideas that you want to base your character around. One of the best techniques is to find your central idea and branch out from it. For a character, generally your central idea will be your character's goal; what they strive for in life. In the end you need to find what works best for you. So in the end, this is an incredibly short section. Oh well. Originality Self explanatory right? DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. This isn't to say you can't take ideas from somewhere but don't have it be the EXACT SAME THING. Another thing that will generally never do is taking an idea and adding minor adjustments to try and justify you being able to use this idea. Generally if you have to explain in detail how it's different from something else it isn't the best idea. Sympathy vs. Empathy I really can't sum it up better than what Specops306 from Halo Fanon says in these two paragraphs: "Writers fall into this trap because they lose perspective. They invest themselves deeply with their characters, and become emotionally attached to them. Criticise the character, and the writer will perceive this as a direct attack on themselves. If you try to point out character flaws, they compensate - if you point out that they're far too strong or successful, they respond that X is a supersoldier. If he's too old, they claim he/she is from a newer project. If you point out that such a project would render the Spartans a moot point, they will angrily demand to know why you are picking on them. Problems begin to mount - cliched backstory, direct contradictions of canon, those surrounding him behaving out of character - and there is a temptation to simply slap the NCF template onto it and leave it to the admins - at which point the user may get really angry, ignore all your criticisms, and either vandalise your userpage or articles in retribution, appeal to higher authorities who perceive your actions as aggressive, or quit the internet forever. All of this can be avoided by reminding writers not to get too involved with their characters - invest yourself too much, and you begin to sympathise with their plight. You think you've made things too hard - perhaps your thirteen year old girl isn't going to stand a chance against a Brute pack. So you make them way overpowered, and take pleasure imagining the character tearing through their foes. Their tragic past is a tough break - maybe you give them an instant love interest who's never been mentioned to make up for it. Or you go the other route - things are looking up for them, which you think will attract criticism, so you go dark - you kill their parents, their friends, their dog, anything to make it darker and edgier. This is the path to suedom - a writer needs to remain mostly impartial, detached. Empathy is what we need to maintain - the ability to know a character's frame of mind and personality without that affecting the storytelling decisions. Don't bend over backwards to make things easy for them, and don't jump through hoops to make things harder for them. There is such a thing as overcompensating. The "character" isn't a "person". You need to make that clear to yourself, and remember it." Godmodding Not familiar with this term? Godmodding is the act of generally making a character way too powerful. It's a trap many new users make and some more experienced make as well. It's a natural reaction I suppose; you made this character and generally you have made an emotional and intellectual investment in doing so. Of course you would want to make this better than everyone else's. But as stated above, you need to be dispassionate in your viewpoint so this kind of thing does not happen. A character is much more interesting when they have flaws. Name Might seem like a fairly small and simple thing, but a name can be everything. Now you can figure this out before or after you finish the character, sometimes even in the middle. Generally have a name in mind before you begin though, just remember you can change it whenever you want. Personality This is honestly one of the (if not THE) most important aspects of a character. This is the place where your character needs to always be unique. Why? A personality is generally the values, emotions, traits, etc. of a character put into words. It helps guide actions in stories (more on consistency later) and reveals how the person sees the world. Some personality traits include: *Dispassion/Passion *Hard-Working/Lazy *Liberal/Conservative (Not political >_>) *Kind/Cruel *Open/Guarded *Naive/World-Weary *Cynic/Idealist *Optimist/Pessimist *Sadistic/Humane *Honorable/Dishonorable *Empathetic/Apathetic The list goes on, but I hope you get the idea. A good way to come up with this, is to come up with scenarios in your head, decide how the character will act, and then use personality traits that explain why they would do this. Using this method it isn't the hardest thing in the world. I might add more later. Appearance This is a section I'm not going to go into much detail with. Appearance is pretty basic, no? All you need to do is describe what your character looks like. You can make it better by describing what they generally wear and their general expressions and body language. Like I said, not much to it. History I'll be brief; your character's history is their backstory; what got them to the current status they are at. Your character's history should generally explain their personality as well. You can either base the personality off the history or the history off of the personality. Either way, REMAIN CONSISTENT.